Tag Archives: Jean le Sage

Gilles et Jeanne. Sounds like a Truffaut film. The Jeanne in question is Joan of Arc, and the two did in fact work together, fought side by side for France, and both were vilified by and tried by Ecclesiastical courts. Joan of Arc became a saint. Gilles became the template for Bluebeard.

We all have our bad days.

So what was the back story here, what got him to his ugly end? You wouldn’t necessarily come to it by a look at his early years. He was born in 1404, son of minor aristocrat who had fought for the King of France in the earlier stages of the Hundred Years War. Gilles spoke Latin and illuminated manuscripts. He was raised by his grandfather, an ambitious man who married Gilles off well, that is to say, to a girl whose family could increase the Monmorency-Laval estates. Continue reading →